


I Just Wanna Feel Your Lips Against My Skin

by minyrrds



Category: Dare Me - Megan Abbott
Genre: F/F, Post-Dare Me, and addy gives no fucks anymore, beth has a lot of feelings ok, it's just a lot of beth feeling things, sorta canon compliant??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minyrrds/pseuds/minyrrds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard fall from grace, and it's even harder when you're alone. </p><p>(Title from Halsey's Is There Somewhere)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Just Wanna Feel Your Lips Against My Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh this is the first fic I've posted in four years, and even then it's more of a drabble than anything. Anywhere, here's my contribution to my gay love.

You will ache and want (and maybe even hope) for her to come back to you. You will wait and bide your time, chipping at their relationship bit by bit, bone by bone, tooth by tooth, until the shell finally cracks and the yolk spills out.

She will pray for forgiveness; you will not.

She will walk crowned queen, basking in the gilt and glory that accompanies bleached white tennis shoes and high kicks (she flies higher than you ever did). You are too proud to face her, to face any of them, deposed of your crown by your own lieutenant, and so you stay away. You spend your days at home, in your car, in the back of the public library. You promise yourself so fiercely that you _will_ get out of there that you _will_ make it up to yourself, that you _wont_ let your heart dangle so openly again, that you almost believe it. Almost (what’s it called when you never quiet stop loving your unrequited love?)

There are still days, bad ones, where you can’t keep yourself from driving by the gym right when practice gets out, just to get a glimpse of that brittle smile and those bruised limbs.

 _See,_ you think, _it’s not as easy as it looks being queen, is it Hanlon?_

But even you have to admit, being royal suits her. You’re grateful that your parents let you be homeschooled this year, get your ged early, so that you don’t have to see her take up court in the cafeteria, the gym, the hallways (always yours yours _yours_ never _ours_ ). You don’t think you can stomach the thought of her choosing someone else over you again, after everything that happened last year, after everything to get her back back _back_ to _you_.

So you cut your hair, close to the scalp, and dye it black, telling your mom that you felt like a change after the _accident_ (maybe if you put enough emphasis, she’ll stop asking questions). You’ve never had your hair this short. sometimes you go to flip your ponytail, forgetting that it’s not there anymore. You forget what it was like when you weren’t trying to diet to purge (to keep off that beer or four), you forget what really wanting food feels like entirely, and emaciation does not suit you. Nothing fits anymore except your smallest dresses, your slinkiest outfits. You learn how to sew, how to hide your sickly frame in long flowing dresses and wide brimmed hats.

You almost throw out everything you ever saved from the squad from _cheerleading,_ but go to donate it to goodwill instead. You tell the woman at the front that it’s part of your however-many-step program, and no thank you you wont be needing a receipt. At the last minute you grab your varsity jacket, _no not this one, sorry, my mistake._ There it is, on the inside right over your heart, the date you made the squad with _a.h. & b.c. foreva bitches!_ scrawled in your and her shitty ninth grade handwriting. Underneath that is the date they made you captain, and under that still is the date that you quit (or fell, but that’s a technicality in your mind).

You see her sometimes, out and about. Your old haunts, places you avoid like the plague now if you can help it, and every time her gaze glosses over you without so much as batting an eyelash (you tell yourself it doesn’t hurt, _it doesn’t_ ). She forgets your existence better than any of the rest of them. their whispers follow you wherever you go, _oh my god is that-? I think so, holy fuck what did she do to her hair-_. You grit your teeth and walk past them with all the grace and regality of a deposed queen. You were royalty once, and you haven’t forgotten.

It’s a few months before you start hearing the rumors. You try not to listen, try not to pay them any attention, those days where the house feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, somehow getting smaller just because you’re in it, and the library makes you feel too hollow too alone left with all those books and you can’t keep yourself from driving the familiar route to the mall and hiding behind the brim of your overly large hat in the food court, despite the stares. At first you don’t believe them, you snort quietly into your diet coke (a habit you never really could break even if you wanted to), but then the reports start coming in more and more frequently and _Did you see addy with that girl at RiRi’s party? I swear she’s turning into a fucking lesbian or something- I always knew there was something going on between her and coach_. At first, you can laugh it off and tell yourself they don’t know her like you do, and you would know if she was even a little bit not straight (you never came out to her in so many words, the phrase _I’m bi_ perched on your lips at camp when you were fourteen and you first discovered what a boys lips tasted like, rough chapped and salty, and how drastically different they felt from a girls, soft and slicked with strawberry lip balm, but never quite letting yourself say them). Then the jealousy sets in, bitter and true, and somehow worse than the last time. because at least the last time you could tell yourself that it wasn’t like that she didn’t want her like that she never- (or did she). _Last time,_ you tell yourself, swallowing the last of your drink before throwing it viciously into the trash, all your frustration put in the flick of your wrist, _last time was different._

A few months go by, and summer creeps up over your shoulder, late April feeling more like June than it ever has, and you decide you’re tired of waiting (tired of hoping). You will ache and want (and very much hope), but you know she wont ever come back to you, so you go get her instead. You pull up to the school, long dress and wide brimmed hat in tow, sunglasses so dark they almost turn the day to night, and give yourself a minute before getting. And almost as if she knew you were coming, she’s there waiting for you, home bleached sneakers, hair pulled back long like taffy, and a shy smile you don’t remember seeing.

_Hey Cassidy,_ she says, leaning back onto the hood of her car, pom poms pressed against her back, the glitter on her cheekbones catching in the light,  _what took you so long?_ .

_This,_ you think,  _all of this_ . There were surgeries there were casts there was a metal rod in your shoulder and a plate in your skull. There was nobody who came to see you, no body who cared. Now there are girls whispering, hanging back by the doors, watching you, watching  _her_ , careful not to step too close. There’s everyone who made you queen and everyone who let you fall, everyone who won’t look you in the eye when they see you, who act as if your very existence ended the moment you hit the ground last spring.

_This,_ you think, but instead you walk up to her, and breathe in and out.

_Been a little busy lately, Hanlon, thought you knew_. Talking has always been easy with her, you never kept secrets (almost never, but then _she_ happened), and you missed it, you missed _her_.

_Yeah? Miss me?_

And instead of answering, you lean forward and do what you wanted to do two summers ago, what you almost did but _it didn’t count_ , and hope.

 

 

When you pull back, she smiles, bright and more dazzling than the bright lights overhead.

_Took you long enough, Cassidy._

You will ache and want and hope, and know she was always just waiting for you.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm here on [tumblr](http://tooruoikawa.co.vu) if you wanna say hi!


End file.
